Of all the arts, abstract painting is the most difficult. It demands that you know how to draw well, that you have a heightened sensitivity for composition and for colors, and that you be a true poet. This last is essential.

Just don't expect everyone to agree.

The true work of art is born from the 'artist': a mysterious, enigmatic, and mystical creation. It detaches itself from him, it acquires an autonomous life, becomes a personality, an independent subject, animated with a spiritual breath, the living subject of a real existence of being.

The intellectual's equivalent of abstract art?

There is no must in art because art is free.

Just ask the folks from Campbell's soup.

The circle is the synthesis of the greatest oppositions. It combines the concentric and the eccentric in a single form and in equilibrium. Of the three primary forms, it points most clearly to the fourth dimension.

Not my circles.

In every painting a whole is mysteriously enclosed, a whole life of tortures, doubts, of hours of enthusiasm and inspiration.

Not my paintings. Or, sure, especially mine.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

As all historians know, the past is a great darkness, and filled with echoes.

And then one day so will the future.

We lived, as usual by ignoring. Ignoring isn't the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.

Imagine for example the folks at Fox News.

One and one and one and one doesn't equal four. Each one remains unique, there is no way of joining them together. They cannot be exchanged, one for the other. They cannot replace each other.

Not counting arithmetic of course.

Faith is only a word, embroidered.

For some in pure silk.

I avoid looking down at my body, not so much because it’s shameful or immodest but because I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to look at something that determines me so completely.

And that's before they take x-rays of the parts inside it.

Maybe none of this is about control. Maybe it really isn't about who can own whom, who can do what to whom and get away with it, even as far as death. Maybe it isn't about who can sit and who has to kneel or stand or lie down, legs spread open. Maybe it's about who can do what to whom and be forgiven for it. Never tell me it amounts to the same thing.

Or maybe it is about all of that.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

Of all those arts in which the wise excel, Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.

If repetitively.

A game: say something. Close your eyes and say something. Anything, a number, a name. Two, two what? Two women. What do they look like? Wearing black. Where are they? In a park. . . . And then, what are they doing? Try it, it's so easy, why don't you want to play? You know, that's how I talk to myself when I'm alone, I tell myself all kinds of stories. And not only silly stories: actually, I live this way altogether.

Most of course only wish they could.

The approval of the public is to be avoided like the plague. It is absolutely essential to keep the public from entering if one wishes to avoid confusion. I must add that the public must be kept panting in expectation at the gate by a system of challenges and provocations.

Especially our public.

If I place love above everything, it is because for me it is the most desperate, the most despairing state of affairs imaginable.

How ridiculous is that, he thought. Never having been in love himself.

Dada is a state of mind.

Not unlike Lala.

Perhaps I am doomed to retrace my steps under the illusion that I am exploring, doomed to try and learn what I should simply recognize, learning a mere fraction of what I have forgotten.

And no one has forgotten more than me. Aside, perhaps, from you.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

Let Me tell you about the birds and the bees.You are killing them all.

And that's just on this planet.

Life goes on. Sorry.

Before or after the grave?

There shouldn't be a stigma about mental health. That's why I've been so open about My struggle with manic depression and anxiety and OCD and paranoid schizophrenia and anti-social personality and conduct disorder and psychopathy and serial killing every creature that ever lived.

God on the couch?

If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to him the other, but then at the last minute duck your head and kick him in the nuts.

Hmm. This doesn't bode well for Heaven.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

Taken as hypotheses, religious claims do very badly. Yet the striking fact is that this does not worry Christians.

Taken as hypotheses, death and oblivion...

I have a general moral: great philosophers may be great, but that is not a reason to follow them. Don't be a follower. Work it out for yourself.

Then get others to follow you. Right, Mr. Objectivist?

I do think that philosophy and science are very different intellectual enterprises, but that does not mean that when we get knowledge from philosophy it is a different kind of knowledge.

Well, not counting conflicting goods of course.

There are no a priori obstacles to the scientific knowledge of the mind, but the scientific knowledge of the mind is not all the knowledge of the mind that there is. This is not an objection to science, it is just a distinction between different kinds of knowledge.

If only up on the skyhooks.

Catholicism is the most philosophical branch of Christianity.

Of course that's not saying much.

Since I don't believe in externalism, I don't think it can explain consciousness!

On the other hand, nothing else can either.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

In 1976, the average supermarket stocked 9,000 unique products; today that number has ballooned to 40,000 of them, yet the average person gets 80%–85% of their needs in only 150 different supermarket items. That means that we need to ignore 39,850 items in the store.

Me, I'm well below 50 for sure.

Make no mistake: E-mail, Facebook, and Twitter checking constitute a neural addiction.

What's that make ILP then?

The Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger (tutor to Nero) complained that his peers were wasting time and money accumulating too many books, admonishing that “the abundance of books is a distraction.” Instead, Seneca recommended focusing on a limited number of good books, to be read thoroughly and repeatedly.

My guess: He picked them.

...knowing that what you are doing is the most important thing for you to be doing at that moment is surprisingly powerful.

Or, sure, just thinking that you are. Like most of us here, right?

Recent research in social psychology has shown that happy people are not people who have more; rather, they are people who are happy with what they already have.

Isn't that just common sense? Nope, not any more.

It turns out that having a best friend during adolescence is an important part of becoming a well-adjusted adult. Those without one are more likely to be bullied and marginalized and to carry these experiences into becoming disagreeable adults.

He wondered if he had one.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

Some killed from murderous conviction. But many others who killed were just afraid to stand out. Other forces were at work besides conformism. But without the conformists, the great atrocities would have been impossible.

Conviction? Conformity? Which is actually worse?

Fascists rejected reason in the name of will, denying objective truth in favor of a glorious myth articulated by leaders who claimed to give voice to the people.

Of course that could never happen today.

One class of elementary school students, for example, sent a letter to party authorities asking “for your help, since we are falling down from hunger. We should be learning, but we are too hungry to walk.”

As I'm sure Trump reminded Kim Jong-un.

Stalin raised a toast: “We will mercilessly destroy anyone who, by his deeds or his thoughts—yes, his thoughts!—threatens the unity of the socialist state. To the complete destruction of all enemies, themselves and their kin!”

In other words, he wasn't a real socialist.

Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle.

Two words: conflicting goods.

Professional ethics must guide us precisely when we are told that the situation is exceptional. Then there is no such thing as “just following orders.”

Professional ethics. Right. For example, ours.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

Yes, studying philosophy condemns you to an endless struggle with anxiety, melancholia, and outright catastrophe. And that's the good part.

No, as a matter of fact, it's not.

Are your children texting about Adorno? TWITF = The whole is the false TINRLITWO = There is no right life in the wrong one EWOAIAUC = Every work of art is an uncommitted crime IPOTEAT = In psychoanalysis only the exaggerations are true

Epistemology: I know what it is. Ontology: I know what is is. Ethics: I know what is should be. Aesthetics: I know what it should be.

Cue Bill Clinton.

History: Question the answer Philosophy: Question the question Psychology: Pay for the answer Economics: Pay for the question Theology: I don't need a question to know the answer Politics: I don't need an answer to forget the question

So, all of the above or none of the above?

When grading papers, professors tend to forget that 1) the students are new at this 2) the assignment was 1 of 20 things the students had to do that week 3) it wasn't the students who wrote the bad paper topics 4) it's important to actually read the paper

Let's start grading posts.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.

An honest God fearing man in particular.

In the fullness of time, educated people will believe there is no soul independent of the body, and hence no life after death.

Unless of course they run out of it first.

Chance is the only source of true novelty.

Except of course in a wholly determined universe.

A man who is right every time is not likely to do very much.

Let's explain that.

You can do reverse engineering, but you can’t do reverse hacking.

No, but you can hack the bastard back.

There is no form of prose more difficult to understand and more tedious to read than the average scientific paper.

With the possible exception of the average analytical philosophy paper.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

The slumber party took place in what the Methodists called a family room, the Catholics used as an extra bedroom, and the neighborhood's only Jews had turned into a combination darkroom and fallout shelter.

Anyone here offended?

I explained that he was Chinese, and she asked if the movie would be in Chinese. No, I said, he lives in America. In California. He's been there since he was a baby. Then what does it matter if he's Chinese?Well, I said, he's got, you know, a sensibility.

Of course these days who doesn't?

...there are only two kinds of flights: ones in which you die and ones in which you do not.

Still, there's not much that isn't applicable to.

It’s not lost on me that I’m so busy recording life, I don’t have time to really live it.

Not unlike most of us, I suspect.

For the first time in memory, I was unable to sleep not because I was anxious but because I was excited.

Of course that's all the difference in the world. At least until it's not.

I don’t know why it was, exactly, but nothing irritated my father quite like the sound of his children’s happiness.

On the other hand, some of us know exactly why.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

According to Stoic philosophy, there is actually no reason to give a shit about how many likes you get on social media. Also...according to pretty much all the other philosophies as well.

Or here, views?

Philosophers: philosophy is the queen of sciences, the foundation on which all knowledge lies. Scientists: oh cool, what are you working on? Philosophers: we are trying to decide whether or not chairs exist.

And then the part about deciding whether we are working on it autonomously.

...one thing that they don't teach you in school in that communism is good and we should do it...

Wow, and I thought it was only my school.

Foucault: everything is a prison.Wittgenstein: everything is a game.Hegel: everything is a dialectic.Schopenhauer: everything is suffering and Hegel sucks.

Schopenauer of course.

...according to postmodernism every idea is exactly as good as every other idea, except for communism, which is twice as good.

I know: not your post-modernism.

The main thing that separates humans from animals is that only humans attempt to draw those sort of distinctions.

Well, as far as we know.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

There's a thing that just as you go to sleep, if you keep your elbows elevated that you will never go below the dream stage. And I've used that quite a lot and it keeps me dreaming much longer than if I just relaxed.

Really, is this a thing?

Make the best of every moment. We're not evolving. We're not going anywhere.

On the other hand, few can live with that.

What I do is I write mainly about very personal and rather lonely feelings, and I explore them in a different way each time. You know, what I do is not terribly intellectual. I'm a pop singer for Christ's sake. As a person, I'm fairly uncomplicated.

On the other hand, few really want to believe that.

If it works, it's out of date.

Not counting most things of course.

As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the time I've got left?

And then [like him] you're gone.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

But who gets to think that way? Who gets to celebrate this cosmic view of life? Not the migrant farm worker. Not the sweatshop workers. Certainly not the homeless person rummaging through the trash for food. You need the luxury of time not spent on mere survival. You need to live in a nation whose government values the search to understand humanity's place in the universe. You need a society in which intellectual pursuit can take you to the frontiers of discovery, and in which news of your discoveries can be routinely disseminated.

That's how it works alright.

If a huge genetic gap separated us from our closest relative in the animal kingdom, we could justifiably celebrate our brilliance. We might be entitled to walk around thinking we’re distant and distinct from our fellow creatures. But no such gap exists. Instead, we are one with the rest of nature, fitting neither above nor below, but within.

Maybe not the genetic gap, but the memetic gap...?

Collectively, these findings tell us it’s conceivable that life began on Mars and later seeded life on Earth, a process known as panspermia.

Let's imagine then the implications of this.

There’s no doubt about it: more varieties of carbon-based molecules exist than all other kinds of molecules combined.

And that [presumably] is just on this planet.

If all mass has gravity, does all gravity have mass? We don’t know.

And now with James gone we never will.

Without a doubt, Einstein’s greatest blunder was having declared that lambda was his greatest blunder.

Perhaps growing up meant we put our knives away and feigned ignorance of the damage.

Sure, but only if they fall for it.

Whatever you want the most, it’s going to be the worst thing for you.

Not counting the hundreds and hundreds of exceptions.

Back then I was still appalled that God would set down his barefoot boy and girl dollies into an Eden where, presumably, He had just turned loose elephantiasis and microbes that eat the human cornea. Now I understand, God is not just rooting for the dollies.

And not much has changed, right?

For scientists, reality is not optional.

You know, whatever that is.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

Studying consciousness tells us more about how the world is fundamentally strange. I think we have a few revolutions to go yet before we get to the bottom of it.

Of course only nature knows for sure.

There's certainly nothing original about the observation that conscious experience poses a hard problem.

And here any number of simple solutions.

Actually, I think most people accept the existence of qualia.

And not just the bird lovers.

Because the idea of zombies seems to make sense, and seems to, in a certain sense, be possible, I think one can use that to argue against the thesis that everything is purely physical. Now many people, I think, agree that the idea of zombies are conceivable, including people who want to be physicalists.

Consider for example the living dead here.

I had the idea that it would be wonderful to be a physicist or a mathematician maybe 500 years ago around the time of Newton when there were really fundamental things just lying around to be discovered.

Also, to know what we know now.

Sense data are much more controversial than qualia, because they are associated with a controversial theory of perception - that one perceives the world by perceiving one's sense-data, or something like that.

"Or something like that" works for me.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

We create an image of who we are inside our self. The image then becomes very deeply entrenched, and it becomes the thing that we attribute responsibility to - we say "I", "I" did this because "I" wanted to, because "I" am a good person or because "I" am a bad person. The loop is the fact that we represent our selves, our desires, hopes, dreads and dreams: it is the way in which we conceive of ourselves, rather than the way we conceive of Mount Everest or of a tree. And I say it exists entirely in the loop: the self is an hallucination hallucinated by an hallucination.

In the loop. And existential down to the bone in some instances.

It turns out that an eerie type of chaos can lurk just behind a facade of order - and yet, deep inside the chaos lurks an even eerier type of order.

Eerier all the more I suspect is why that is.

The key question is, no matter how much you absorb of another person, can you have absorbed so much of them that when that primary brain perishes, you can feel that that person did not totally perish from the earth... because they live on in a 'second neural brighter and some dimmer, in the collective brains of those who were dearest to them... Though the primary brain has been eclipsed, there is, in those who remain... a collective corona that still glows.

Sure, if you can make that work for you.

The following sentence is false. The preceding sentence is true.

Oh the places we can go in a world of words.

Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

Sometimes, I'll double it at least.

Irrationality is the square root of all evil.

What's that make objectivism then?

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

So, I'll tell you why it didn't work for me if you'll tell me why it didn't work for you.

It's a Death Mask, Charlie Brown

Hell, even his creator knows that now.

you, an art critic: bob ross is a hack who uses painting tricks to knock out hotel art me, an art lover: bob ross is a fucking genius who transcends the genre as well as calms my anxiety about everything

I never missed a single episode myself. A mostly true story.

home is where the hurt is

Giving and receiving it as it were.

millionaires can go fuck themselves, too

Thousandaires too as far as that goes.

in the name of drugs, what more in the name of drugs?

In other words, once you've given up on love.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles